For
over sixty years the issue of the Jewish state of Israel has been a
decisive pedestal of Middle Eastern conflict, dividing the Jewish and
Arab peoples not only in the region in question, but also throughout
the Middle East, and installing deadly and nefarious antagonisms in
each group. To comprehend the current plight of the Jewish and Arab
people today over Palestinian land, one must know the general history
of the Jewish-Muslim dispute.

The
Jewish held a great presence in contemporary Palestine, an ancient
trade center that linked Europe, Asia, and Africa. The territory was
shared between Arabs and Jews up until around 600 AD, when Muslims –
whose religion was just forming – conquered the territory. Drifting
between various powers and cultures, the Ottoman Empire obtained the
area in the 1800s at its apex. However, in the 1900s, the European
force was deteriorating, and was likewise dubbed the "sick man or
Europe".

Upon
the capture of Ottoman territories during World War I (WWI) by the
Allies, Britain – in an agreement with France – obtained Iraq and
Palestine as its own territories. Obligated to fulfill a wartime
promise to the Ottoman Empire (as the power had agreed to assist
Britain in the war) for the creation an Arabic Homeland, Britain
allowed a massive number of Muslims to migrate to Palestine.

However,
such a solution, though agreeable, didn't suit the intricate
circumstances of Palestinian land. Being occupied by the Jewish
before a Muslim dominance, Palestine was and still is revered by many
Jews as Holy Land, and contains many significant temples and areas
significant to Jewish history. However, the Muslims also maintain a
number of religious sites in Palestine, including important mosques;
the Prophet Muhammad – an upheld Muslim icon – is also said to
have risen to heaven from a site in Palestine.

The
biblical decisiveness of Palestine in Jewish culture led many Jews to
migrate to the area in the early 1900s. In response, the British
government claimed in the 1917 Balfour Declaration that Palestine
should also constitute as a Jewish Homeland as long as it didn't
infringe the rights of the pre-existing Arabs.

As
anti-Semitic fascism began to grip Europe, especially in Germany,
during the 1930s, many Jews sought to find a refuge to the horrible
abuses and executions that the minority religion was facing.
Palestine was considered the most logical and most fitting sanctuary
to escape European persecution.

The
Zionist movement throughout the 1930s to bring the Jews to their
long-lost homeland – Palestine – yielded an unprecedented number
of people to the region. In 1939 alone, 85,000 Jews migrated to the
joint Arab and Jewish Homeland. In the duration of the rest of World
War II (WWII), 445,000 Jews sought out the land of their religious
origin.

The
British government left Palestine divided into two states when it
relinquished the area in 1947. Though the Jews were very pleased by
the move, the Arabs were incensed by the fact that, while Jews only
made up about a third of the Palestinian population, their had
received half of the region's land. A year later, the majority of
people would continuously shift toward the Jewish, and in 1948 the
state of Israel was proclaimed by the Jewish people, who now owned
about three fourths of Palestinian land.

The
Palestinian conflict was not considerably ignited again until the
Israeli attack on the West Bank, then a colony of Jordan and Syria,
and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Both areas housed many Arabs (who were to
begin calling themselves "Palestinians") after fleeing Palestine
during WWII, and the Jewish assault now displaced even more Muslims.
Arab nations staged a military strike against Israel in response, but
it was to little avail; 200,000 Arabs had fled from the Bank and over
a million remained as refugees.

Such
Israeli imposition over the land of Palestine created the opposition
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), an Arab apparatus which
would come to inflict terror amongst Israelis in order to reclaim
their granted land.

Israel
countered the PLO by invading Lebanon, a country that shares Israel's
northern border. Though many PLO fighters were dispersed, the
volatile Lebanon – as it was in the middle of a prolonging civil
war – had many extremist Islam militants to replace these fighters,
and soon gave birth to the anti-Israeli Hezbollah movement see the
Lebanon essays in these works to obtain more information. Meanwhile
in the 1980s, more Israelis began to invade the Arab territory with
settlements that bore residents.

The
closest Israel and Palestinian peace came in 1993. In a negotiation
attempt hosted by the USA in Washington DC, Yasar Arafat, leader of
the PLO, obtained recognition by Israel and pledged to cease
terrorist acts and begin the process to a Palestinian state via
elections; in compliance, Israel returned some West Bank cities to
the Arabs.

This
effort however did not work. In 2000, the Palestinians once again
began terrorizing Israelites in a conflict that called to arms many
anti-Israeli organizations and created intense fighting between the
Jews and Arabs for four and a half years. It was with the December
2004 death of Yasar Arafat – the PLO head who often espoused
terrorism as resolution – that the Israel-Palestine conflict truly
began to obtain its contemporary momentum.

Note:
this brief overview is not meant to support the personal thoughts of
the author, and an apology is put forth in advance in this disclaimer
if viewers believe the report is biased.

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